Punishment not Reward: Disincentivising Blockchain Application Misbehaviour

Abstract

Blockchain architectures and applications emerged from the Bitcoin model, and are still most commonly associated with currency applications, and with financial speculation. This perception has driven the reward mechanisms for the various kinds of coin mining fueled consensus techniques seen in the vast majority of blockchain applications. As an alternative to reward mechanisms via coin payment, we proposedenial of service to the application in question and/orrevocation of participant confidentiality as punishment mechanisms for enterprise mission critical blockchain applications, to be used as part of the incentive mix sustaining the application. This obviates or diminishes the need for reward via cryptocurrencies, along with all their attendant volatility, insecure ecosystem and market manipulation demerits. We emphatically stress the importance of correctly balancing diverseapplication specific interests in the engineering of blockchain applications.